Heart's Desire (Ceanothus gloriosus)
by daisyandphoebe
Summary: Bella's life, predictable and streaked with poor timing, can use a re-landscape. The decision to make some changes brings with it an old friend. The boy who had pulled up a chair, opened a sketch pad, and infiltrated her mind for four years stands, now a man, behind her screen. But inviting him in is not as simple as opening the door.
1. Chapter 1

Dear abadkitty,

This story is our thanks to you for being you.

We hope you know how much your kindness, generosity, support, and friendship means to us.

This world could use at least a million more like you.

We hope this makes you smile.

Much love to you, S.

daisyandphoebe (aka BelieveItOrNot and thimbles).

Thanks to myimm0rtal for stepping up to beta the fantastic way she always does. And thanks to Maplestyle for prereading. Your enthusiasm is so motivating!

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** Heart's Desire (__****Ceanothus gloriosus)****  
**

_Summary: Bella's life, predictable and streaked with poor timing, can use a re-landscape. The decision to make some changes brings with it an old friend. The boy who had pulled up a chair, opened a sketch pad, and infiltrated her mind for four years stands, now a man, behind her screen. But inviting him in is not as simple as opening the door._

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**Chapter 1**.

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Sitting here, confined to my chair, cemented in this spot until released, I'm reminded of my office. The waiting room walls, drab but for the abstract painting in a mix of colors best left to rest in the early nineties: mauve, the dullest lavender, muted gray-blues. I check my watch. Twenty-four minutes now just sitting. For the first time in a long time, I'd rather be at the office. At least there I'd be inputting numbers, filling out forms. As monotonous as that may be, it's _something_. I toss the magazine I've vacantly been flipping through onto the heavy glass table and sit forward, turning to look at Emily. Her near-black eyes are glazing over, half-closed now.

"How you doing?" I ask.

"You know what Maggie said to me? They're moving to Palm Springs, you know?"

"I know," I say, patting her shoulder. "I'm the one throwing her the going away party, honey. You okay?" From this side, I can't see the scar on her right cheek, and she hasn't touched it once since I'd picked her up this morning. This is the longest stretch she's gone without touching her scar since the night it was sliced into her. It has to be the Valium.

"Last night she said, and I'm serious, she asked me if I thought they should buy the biggest house in the poorer neighborhood or the smallest house in the richer neighborhood. And I'm serious. She asked me that. Seriously."

I chuckle—partly because of the way she's talking and partly because of Maggie's ridiculous question. I half want to ask Emily if she's serious, but I can't mess with her like that while she's in this state of mind. "What did you say?"

Her answer comes slower than she might intend, her words slurring together. "I said I thought she had quite the conum-conundrum on her hands, but I couldn't think about that right now because all I could think about, thank you very much, was that by this time tomorrow, my battle scar will be gone. _Gone._" It's like she tries to smile, but only part of her mouth goes up and her eyes close as though they've won a fight. She rests her head back on the wall behind us. I slide my fingers through her hair, dark and tangle-free, like always.

Battle scar, that's what she's always called it. I can't understand how she's maintained this droll attitude about this situation, as if the scar is something she accomplished. Maybe that's all she can do—to cope, to persevere. It's been a year since it happened: Sam, in a drunken fit, slicing right into her skin like her face was a slab of meat. I hadn't witnessed Emily cry over it once. When I raced to visit her in the hospital as soon as her mom called me, Emily said, "See. They were always all over us for getting stoned. Smoking weed won't make anyone do something like this." Lying there on the hospital bed, she swept fingers down the bandage on her face. "This is liquor, darling. And what's more acceptable? Tell me."

"Liquor," I told her, tears slipping from my eyes.

"Damn straight."

"It's going to be gone," I repeat to her now, still sliding my fingers through the ends of her hair. I couldn't do this with my hair. While mine is similar in color and length, it's wavier than Emily's. Right after I comb through it, tresses find a way to wrap themselves around each other again. I liken my mane to Medusa's snakes, like my hair's alive and each strand is a separate entity. I envy hair like Emily's.

We say the scar will be gone but the truth is, it will be mostly gone. Her doctor warned her that while it will be harder to notice, it was a deep enough cut that traces of it will be left behind. Lighter, smoother, but still—faintly—there. The nurse calls her name, and Emily tells me that's her as if it's new knowledge to both of us. I stand with her and kiss her cheek before she half-staggers toward the woman behind the partially opened door. Emily bumps into the wall and I reach to help her, but the nurse takes her hand.

"I'm on medication," Emily says before the door is closed. My eyes tear up despite the laugh behind my lips.

I fall back into my chair and to keep my mind off Emily's surgery, I think of Maggie and her family's impending move to the tip toes of California. Maybe that's what I need to shake up my world. A move. A new job. New possibilities. If Emily would come with me I'd do it. Not that I can't handle a move on my own, but I couldn't leave without Emily. While our friends continue to get married and have kids, unwittingly putting the pressure on us to do the same, Emily has been, and is, my other half. It's the way we like it.

"I'm never getting married," she said at the last wedding we attended, and I could've said the same. "And if I do, which I won't, it's not going to be like this." She hit the huge bow of tulle attached to the back of my chair. It flopped, unperturbed from its billowy form.

"We should just have a 'we're never getting married' party," I said. "Without tulle. We'll be like married to each other." But deep in my gut, mixing with wine and champagne, stirred the desire for a family. Someday.

"Are you proposing, Swan?" She ran her fingertips down her scar. "Hell, I'd marry you in a heartbeat." She took my hand. "Let's dance." She gave me a sardonic look—small, tight smile, long-lashed eyes slightly narrowed. "Bet you a hundred the next song is Sister Sledge."

I take myself out to lunch while I wait for Emily. Clomping down the street in my boots, concrete buildings sprouting up to the sky on either side, I draw my jacket tighter around my waist.

Well across the bay and through the hills, in my own backyard, I'd likely be perspiring in short sleeves, but not in San Francisco. At least the sun is out for now. I watch the sparkles on the sidewalk between dark splotches of who knows what as I head to the nearest cafe.

Emily is even loopier when she's discharged. "I'm pretty," she says, looking up at me from her wheelchair—if you can call it _looking_. Again her eyelids are winning their battle to remain closed. I can't see beyond the bandage covering the surgeon's handiwork, but I tell her she's beautiful. The nurse hands me Emily's prescription, a few pills, some packets of cream, and helps me wheel her out to my car.

My girl, my pseudo-wife, sleeps the whole way home. It's so quiet in the car, I can hear the ticking of my blinker as I turn off at my exit.

If the trees seem to welcome you into town, well, the welcome doesn't stop. Up the hill I drive, canopied in green.

Sheltered by more trees is my street, almost unseen until you're upon it. Between larger homes my two-bedroom crouches, a lowly runt among giants, deep-set at the bottom of a slanted driveway. I bought the house a few years back for the lot size and for the long-term. The backyard is so big that it forces the native trees back and lets the sun reign during the peak hours of the afternoon. The sunlight is broken up only twice, once on either side of the yard, by an ash and a maple, planted long before I moved in. They offer much-required shade in the spring and summer months. The forty-year-old home was within my price range, and "I can always build out or up if I need to," I'd said to my dad, who'd offered to help with the down payment.

Any need for expansion has evaded even the farthest reaches of my periphery, and the more time that passes, the more it seems such a need might dodge me altogether, just whip around me like I'm no more than a tumbleweed blowing across its path.

I'd imagined, though, what I would add and where. Wide stairs off the entryway, all wood, leading to the master bedroom with a large-tiled bathroom made for at least two, and maybe a balcony where I could sip my morning coffee and read the paper before I slip into my shoes. A formal living room branching off the kitchen with French doors opening onto a garden. Tomatoes, green onions, bell peppers, an apricot tree.

Strawberries, I'd dreamed, so crimson and sweet, the breeze would carry their scent into the house. My mother had always grown little strawberry patches even when it meant plucking out snails near daily. I remember a snail every once in a while making its way toward our front door as if an invited guest, the slimy trail exposing his path, betraying his friends or family still hidden under strawberry leaves. Why they wanted inside I couldn't figure. They never made it though.

The fantasy garden has become nothing but a hazy line on my to-do list, knocked down like an unfolding Jacob's Ladder each time another item is added.

A few hours after I get Emily tucked into my bed, I hear the bathroom door slam. She's retching. I grab a glass of water and wait outside the door for her.

She exits and I offer her the glass. She takes a long drink. Her voice is barely a mumble. "Remind me never to have plastic surgery again." She shoves the glass back into my hand and plops herself into bed. I lift the covers over her shoulders and pat the top like she's my little girl. A part of me wants to climb in with her.

I slept in her bed for weeks after Sam did what he did. Emily liked to act like she didn't need me. "I'm not going to disappear," she said. "There's no goblin king lurking under my bed." I ignored that. She needed me. And maybe I needed her.

.

I trace the jagged edge of the pot of soil on my kitchen counter. I let my finger slip down the mosaic of turquoise and white tile chips that Maggie had announced she'd grouted and designed herself. "What the hell am I supposed to do with you?"

Emily left it here when she went home a couple of days ago. She tucked her fingers under her thumb and flicked them out at me as if to indicate a dismissal of my objections to keep the plant. "Just water it, darling. How hard can it be?"

I squinted at her. "If it's not hard, then why, exactly, aren't you taking it with you?"

"Just add it to your routine," she said. "Water it before you leave for work. Schedule it in between, oh, I don't know, putting on your nylons and pouring your coffee into that fancy-schmancy travel mug."

I frowned. "I put my watch on before I pour the coffee. And I read the paper before I even think about nylons."

Emily's eyebrows reached toward her hairline. "That's lame, Bella. Seriously."

"It's not lame. It's efficient." I could hear the lack of conviction in my own voice. It _was_ lame. That's what my life has become: maximizing the efficiency of my morning routine so I can stay in bed, drifting in my oblivion for as long as possible. "And you remember what Professor Torrence used to say."

"'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?'"

I couldn't help but laugh recalling the old jokes we used to crack at our Professor's expense and his unfortunate last name. I stifled my chuckle and feigned anger. "No! About how important it is to keep up with current events."

I tried again, pointing at the pot. "Maggie gave it to _you_, Em." She'd brought it over the previous night, along with what she titled her "Gourmet _Aubergine_ and Lemon Risotto"—enough to leave me with leftovers for weeks—and a bottle of wine that we didn't end up opening because Emily's doctor was pretty firm on the not mixing pain meds and alcohol thing.

"It matches the couch in your living room," I said. "She definitely intended it to be in your house. What'll she say when she finds you've abandoned it?"

"She'll say that you loved it so much you couldn't let it go. You know it has a better chance of survival here. If you send it with me, you're killing it already." Emily touched her face, absentmindedly, I could tell. I couldn't see even the shadow of a scar from where I stood. "You can think of me when it's sitting here spouting pretty flowers in your ugly kitchen."

My kitchen seems even uglier now without Emily's smile brightening it, without our laughter filling it. The laminate counter top with its hideous beige and salmon coloring, the flecked cork floor, the ridiculous back splash, its tiles depicting drawings of zucchinis and potatoes and squash—it's a memorial to the poor taste of interior design in the late seventies.

I poke a finger into the cool soil. "Is there even anything in you?"

It's supposedly some kind of bulb—maybe a tulip or daffodil. I wouldn't put it past Emily to give Maggie—or myself—an empty pot. She'd amuse herself at the thought of us standing over it, watering it, feeding it, getting impatient, wondering why the hell nothing was growing … But Maggie? A gift we can't yet see isn't her usual style. She's more the "ornately flowering, exotic species found only in specialist nurseries" kind of girl.

I grab the half-empty glass of water from beside the sink and drizzle it over the pot. As the liquid soaks into the soil, I imagine a tiny green tendril uncurling. I imagine it lengthening, pushing its way upward, seeking light and warmth and life.

I relocate it to the breakfast nook and set it on the pine table that actually belongs outdoors. There's even a hole in the center for an umbrella stand. With the linen tablecloth thrown over the top, its rotting picnic-table-look is almost disguised. Unfortunately the bench seats, in need of a good sanding, give its intended use away. I've often thought of adding padding to these benches for comfort and for a more indoor aesthetic. This has fallen to at least thirty-seventh on my Jacob's Ladder.

I raise the shade over the large window behind the table so the plant can bask in sunshine. From underuse, the shade sticks a few times before it allows me to release it. The window offers an expansive view of my backyard and is therefore rarely bare. I aim my attention at the pot of dirt, visualize how it might look when color shoots from it, when the flower opens up.

I lean closer and touch a tile, sort of tickle it. "Grow, little sprout."

I shake my head at myself. I'm spending my Friday morning conversing with a potted plant.

The splashes of sunlight over the floor warm my feet as I wander to my back door.

It squeaks as I slide it open. A breeze brings me the mixed scents of my neighbors' well-tended gardens—lavender and jasmine and the heady perfume of Mrs. Banner's much-vaunted gardenias.

I sigh at my original two trees as if it's their fault the yard hasn't been improved since day one. I narrow my eyes at the fence-lining bushes, overgrown, their feet spattered with lanky sun-gold poppies and weeds.

Those weeds sprawl across the yard. I can almost see them reaching toward my toes as I stand here. The grass—long enough to tickle my calves should I step out, something I haven't done for weeks—is slowly but surely succumbing to the invasion.

On the other side of the fence, Mr. Crowley takes off his bucket hat, the same kind my dad wears, and waves it up at me. I return the wave.

"Workin' out back today, too?" he calls to me, hope lightening his typically scratchy voice. "Nice day for it."

"No time," I shout back. I point to my watch. "Work."

"I'd help you out. It's my knees. Damn arthritis. Limits my work time."

Too stubborn for a cane, he grips a big walking stick to assist him in his trek up and down the slope of the hill. Last year, he presented the stick to me across his two palms as if it were a jeweled scepter, explained where he found it by the creek, how he varnished the thing.

He makes his way closer to the fence and I meet him there. "Should you even be doing your own yard? Where's Tyler?"

The last time his grandson was in town, Mr. Crowley sent him over here with orders to tame the jungle behind my house. But now that spring has taken hold, everything is growing faster, the greenery flourishing. Who can keep up?

"No break for a few weeks." His voice has thickened up again. "He's looking toward exams. I don't mind the work. All worth it in the end. Your yard? It's an extension of yourself." He passes a concerned glance over my yard.

"An extension of yourself?"

"Who do you think chose what's planted in my garden? Who put that bench in over there?" He points behind him, the bench under a trellis of climbing vines. "A nice escape from the missus." His laugh is throaty.

I nod, turning from him, my gaze wandering my yard. This extension of myself. It feels too true. It's enough to make me shudder.

"Anyway," he says. "The garage'll be open if you need my mower later."

"Will do." I wave goodbye as he gets back to his weeding or pruning. I think I actually mean it for once. I will use his mower. He usually manicures my front yard when he does his own. He claims he likes doing it. He's always wanted a granddaughter, he tells me. He'd do my backyard if he could. But I wouldn't ask him or expect him to. Besides, my yard needs more than a good mow. It needs an overhaul.

"Maybe it's time," I say as if someone else is listening, catching my words, mulling them over, and will speak to me in return, offer me what I need to hear or want to hear, or both. "It is time," I say, speaking for this ethereal being—my validation.

At the office I run an internet search and dial the first number listed.

"Stanley's Landscape Design," a perky yet bored voice answers, as if the perkiness is rehearsed. "Gianna speaking."

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Thank you for reading. More to come!

We don't have a posting schedule at this time, but we're aiming for once a week or once every other week as our schedules permit.


	2. Chapter 2

Happy early birthday, abadkitty!

Our thanks to myimm0rtal for her betaing efforts, and to Maplestyle for pre-reading!

And thank you to _you_ for reading.

Love, daisy and phoebe (or Shell and Believey).

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**Chapter 2.**

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The weekend rushes past and Monday brings a blur of black type and snatches of conversations, invariably interrupted before they're complete. It's after three-thirty when I eat lunch, a fork in one hand and my highlighter in the other.

"Girl, put down the pen." Jacob plops into the straight-backed chair in front of my desk.

Embarrassment creeps up my neck and I press my lips together. I focus on the pages in front of me. I don't want to look at him, don't want to see the way his Oxford barely contains his shoulders and chest, or the casual way he sits in a chair, legs open, his belt buckle gleaming, almost winking at me.

I drop my fork back into the Tupperware container, reach for my sticky-notes and flag a few paragraphs. I don't need them, but I can pull them off when Jacob's gone.

"It's a quarter to four, babe. And I'm guessing that's not an afternoon snack."

_Babe. _I have the urge to spit the word back at him. Instead, I shrug, eyes still on my papers. "Busy day."

_Babe._ He probably addresses all the women in the office the same way. That little unprofessionalism isn't just for me, isn't some endearment to let me know I'm on his mind.

The cups of tea he brought me, the ones that sat on my desk going cold because I don't drink tea, hadn't meant anything other than that his office was next to mine, that he was simply being considerate to a co-worker, that there was probably just enough water left in the teapot to fill one more cup.

The pet name and the cups of tea weren't the only things that had given me the wrong impression.

He made me laugh, and he seemed to put effort into it, like my laughing was important to him. He smiled when I laughed. And he was always so interested in what I had to say. He'd stop by my office with his lunch several days a week and would ask me about my weekend, my family, my opinions on everything from where the housing market's going (_It's on its way up_, _and I think it will continue this path_) to American Idol (_Do people still watch that?_).

Turns out, he just likes to talk.

I waited weeks for him to ask me out, imagining how it would happen.

We'd have drinks after work. He'd sip scotch whiskey—no ice. I'd order a cocktail, something with a straw. I'd fiddle with it as he'd reach across the table, his dark eyes glinting in the low-lit room, and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. His voice would be quiet with maybe a nervous pitch when he'd ask me to have dinner with him. I'd tease him, tell him I don't date colleagues, wait for his smile to drop, then cover his hand with mine, tell him I'd be willing to make an exception—just for him.

And when it didn't happen, though he was still visiting my desk to chat and eat lunch, I started thinking that I could ask him out. Maybe he was shyer than he seemed. I could be the one who gathered up my nerves and asked him to dinner. I mean, why not?

So I gathered my nerves the way mallards gather their young, pushed my chair back and stood up. I straightened my skirt, craned my neck to check that no runs were creeping up my nylons, and picked up my lunch. I contemplated a dash to the bathroom to touch up my lipstick, but no. Too much.

A deep breath and I knocked on the jamb of his open office door. "Hey, Jake."

He looked up with a smile and gestured toward the empty chair in front of his desk when he saw the container I was holding. "This is new. Need a change of scenery, babe?"

His term of endearment pumped through me, spurred me forward. "Something like that." I sat across from him, my salad in my lap.

Instead of picking up my fork, I grasped the dichroic glass pendant lying against my collarbone, and slid it back and forth on its fine silver chain. "So, you..." I cleared my throat, trying to drive the quiver out of my voice. "You got plans for this weekend?"

He nodded, his mouth full of sandwich. My hand moved faster, the scratch of pendant against chain vibrating through my neck.

"I..." He wiped his chin, chasing away breadcrumbs. "I finally manned-up and asked Tanya out."

_Tanya? Finally? _

Jacob chuckled, wiped his mouth again. "Do I have food on my face?"

I shook my head and swallowed down my disappointment. "No, no. Uh, so, where are you taking her?"

"Thought we'd check out that new wine bar downtown."

"Vini? I've been wanting to go there." I forced a smile. "It's supposed to be really classy. Intimate. I'm sure she'll love it." My voice sounded strange, higher than usual.

Jacob didn't seem to notice. "Hope so." The tips of his ears colored first.

That's what did it. The deepening of his ears followed by his cheeks, the physical evidence of his feelings. My eyes stung.

I should've acted sooner. Or shown him I was interested—flirted more, maybe.

I picked up my fork and shoveled down my salad, tasting nothing.

He changed the subject then, asking me about the television series I'd started watching on his recommendation. I answered vaguely, losing my train of thought as I tried not to compare myself to Tanya, to wonder what about her had caught his attention. How I could have misread the situation so badly.

"You okay, girl?"

"Fine," I said, closing the lid of the container. "Just got a lot on my plate." I stood, not meeting his eyes. "Better get back to work."

My attention snaps to my desk as the file of papers move. I follow the hand attached to it, my gaze running over the heavy silver watch and up the neatly pressed slate gray shirt sleeve until I register the raised eyebrows Jacob is aiming my way. I look away, fingering my necklace. It's been over a month since I realized my silly crush would go nowhere. Why am I still bothered?

It's that I'm left here, reminded of the fool I am every time Jacob and Tanya do their daily little mating dance in front of me.

"Just stop. For three freaking minutes, Bella, and eat your rice."

"It's risotto," I say.

He smiles and I swallow, reaching for my fork. Jacob really has a beautiful smile. I shake my head to chase away the thought, but he takes it as dissension.

"Eat. Take a break. You work too hard. Go… make yourself a cup of tea or something."

I start to finally tell him I don't drink tea, but he's no longer looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the blonde in my doorway, leaning into the room.

"Hey, Bella. How's it going? Can I borrow Jake?"

He's already on his feet. "Catch you later, Bella."

Neither of them hears my, "He's yours anyway," as they exit the room, their conversation a low murmur.

A forkful of cold risotto halfway to my mouth, I watch Tanya push open the door to the office across the hall. Jacob's hand rests on her lower back and she pauses, looking up at him, all pink-lipstick smiles. He sweeps an errant curl behind her ear and presses a kiss to her cheek.

.

The week drones on as though time is wrapped around my waist, towing me with it. I'm tied to its elasticity, moving as it moves but somehow feeling as if I'm lagging behind. Visits with Emily and phone calls with Maggie are all that break it up. Thursday morning I catch Mr. Crowley in his front yard, fiddling with one of his sprinkler heads. He aims a thumb over his shoulder indicating the back yard and says, "Looking good."

"It's all right. I have a landscaper coming this evening for a consultation," I say, sort of boasting or prideful of my decision to act further on his unsubtle suggestion last Friday. It's the way I used to announce good grades to my father, looking for that gleam of pride in his eyes.

Traffic congestion surrounds me as I leave the city after work. The woman from the landscaping company said they'd come by at 6:30 to take a look at the "space"—that's what she called it.

I check the clock on the dash for the hundredth time. If the traffic eases up soon, I can beat the landscaper to my house by about five minutes.

"Please move," I tell the bumper of the car in front of me. "I want to be home in time to change before the guy shows up." I don't tell the Corolla's rear end that I'd feel stupid showing the guy around the messy yard in my crisp linen and carefully pressed creases.

When I finally pull into my street, I'm relieved it's empty of unfamiliar vehicles. I rush inside, dump my handbag on the counter and kick off my shoes, leaving them in the hallway where they land.

I'm pulling on a pair of shorts when the doorbell lets out a shaky buzz. I suck in my stomach, button and zip, and head toward the front, tugging a T-shirt over my head.

"You need to replace the battery." The guy is a tall silhouette through the screen door.

In my shadow I can see the wild mess on top of my head. I attempt to tame it with my palms, but I don't dare involve my fingers.

"I know. I've been meaning to for weeks." The door handle refuses to budge as I yank on it. I shake it, a groan growing in my throat. The metal rattles but doesn't yield. "Hang on. The lock's acting up again."

I grab the key from the sideboard. "Another thing I need to replace." I shove the door and the ease with which it swings open nearly has me stumbling onto the porch. As I catch myself on the jamb, I can feel the door's satisfaction and its stubborn insistence that it never gave me any trouble at all. "Sorry, it locks itself sometimes."

I look up, and the scowl I was aiming at my pain-in-the-ass door melts from my face. Standing there on my porch, eyes on mine like they've been waiting for me to meet them, is the last person on earth I expect to see.

His eyes don't budge, deep green and deep-set under a heavy brow.

I swallow.

His hair, rich and tousled, like the wind's been fooling with it. Tan skin over what I once knew to be very pale. I remember spotting the veins in his eyelids whenever he looked down. He smiles and I don't. I near about collapse a second time and grip the doorjamb for balance. I squeeze the edge of the wood until it hurts. For a reality check. _I'm here. I'm here._

I can't feel the floor beneath me.

All I can feel is that wood digging into my palm.

He looks me up and down, I notice, and when I speak my voice sounds like the wind's been at me, too, beating at the back of my throat. "Edward Cullen."

"Bella Swan," he says, deep and easy, drawing out my last name like it's got soul. His grin widens.

I try to clear my throat but that doesn't work. I grip the door even tighter. "Not fair," I manage to say, my throat full of so much more than words, full of another life and a young crush and searching for the right clothes and book bag straps digging into my shoulder. "You already had my name on your um..." I gesture with my free and painless hand toward his clipboard.

"Yeah, but you look the same," he says, and I don't know if that's good or bad. "Bella. Wow."

_Wow? Wow, what? Wow, it's been a long time? Wow, I can't believe it's you? Wow, it's great to see you?_

"Wow," I agree. I may not know what his wow meant, but mine? Mine means the boy I couldn't get enough of, couldn't stop thinking about, whose name I couldn't stop doodling, is standing on my doorstep, and even though I haven't seen him in years, his smile is every bit as knee-weakening as I remember.

I reach up to smooth my hair even more and I'm eighteen again, in twelfth grade drawing class, Edward beside me sketching, his eyes mischievous as his creation takes form—always beautiful but rarely following the assignment.

I'm taking the long way to US History so I can pass by him in the quad, hoping to make eye contact, only to be too shy to look anywhere but at his chest or his shoes as I actually do pass him. That's enough. Every time it's enough.

I'm convincing Angela to trade lockers with me so that mine will be near his. _My locker is so much closer to all your classes,_ I tell her. She says, _You just want to be next to Edward_, and even though I won't admit she's right, she agrees to trade lockers.

Prom is getting closer and I'm scribbling in my diary about how much I both love and hate Edward because he still hasn't asked me, hasn't asked anyone. _Why should he ask me?_ I write.

_He's dangerous._ Dangerous to my heart.

Was. Was dangerous. That was a long time ago. I'm twenty-five now, more experienced, more mature. I wear heels and skirts and nylons and sometimes blazers to work. I send documents off which, without my signature, would be meaningless and likely headed toward the recycle bin. This is just—this heart-pounding, sweat-gathering, teeth biting down—this is just old feelings reminding me that for a while they were an everyday part of my life. Edward was an everyday part of my life. But that was then.

Still, like an addict, this feels damn good.

"Bella?" His voice climbs up my spine, the tingles, exactly the same as I remember.

I inhale deep through my nose. "Yeah?"

"The space?" He gestures past me. "Should we take a look at it?"

I release the wood that is embedding itself into my hand, shake the burn away and then motion for him to follow me. As I lead him out back, I feel him behind me, like his gaze is touching me, brushing over my body. I walk tall, straight-backed, square-shouldered, feet striding out in front of me, affecting the walk of a dancer. My arms are inorganic to me. They're made of lead and seem to have been attached haphazardly. When my hips sway too much, I try to control that, and then I think there's no sway at all. I must look unnaturally stiff. Leave it to me to forget how to walk just by being in Edward's presence. I turn to look at him, and he's looking right at me—smiling. I move my lips, but still, I can't bring myself to smile at him. I haven't been this floored by anyone or anything since... Edward Cullen, sophomore, junior, senior year.

Outside he sweeps past me and walks the length of the yard. He bends to a squat and digs at the earth, studying it as he sifts it through his fingers. He jots notes on his clipboard. I hadn't noticed before, too focused on his face, but his arms, expanding against his shirt sleeves, are absolutely not teenage arms. With a hand under my hair at my neck, I watch his muscles flex as he works. He pushes against some branches, glances my way, and my hold on my neck tenses. He pulls off a few leaves and seems to examine them. What he's looking for, I have no idea.

His gaze trails every detail. He slides his phone out of his back pocket and snaps pictures from different angles. I'm relieved I'd lugged Mr. Crowley's lawnmower back here, strained to get it to cut the grass rather than iron it. The sore muscles that had me walking funny all weekend were worth it. The savage weeds are embarrassing enough without the added neglect of a mow.

"What are you thinking?" he asks, making his way back to me. "Simplicity? A color scheme? Just greens?"

"Yes."

He laughs, his face brightening. "Which one?"

"All of it. Anything. Just different."

"You've given this a lot of thought."

I catch the sarcasm in his tone, but I have given it a lot of thought. It's just that I can't think now.

"I-I know I want strawberries somewhere, and a place to plant some vegetables every year. A few more trees. And yeah, color. And smell. Lots of good smells. Colorful smells."

"Lilac," he says, moving closer.

I look up at him. One or two more steps and he'll be close enough for his breath to reach me. He's already close enough for his body heat to mix with mine.

"Lilac is definitely for you."

"It is?" I breathe.

"It loves this climate, too. Not too hot, not too dry."

I have the urge to touch him the way he touched my soil, graze his forearms, or even just his fingers, lying there at his side aimed at the earth. My earth. He looks away for a second, sort of smiles at nothing and looks back at me. "It's so weird seeing you now. You know, I used to like you?"

My breathing pauses. My stomach spins. Chills, enhanced by the breeze, run along my arms. I'm aware of the wind in a way I wasn't before. It wafts over me, lifts my hair, toys with me.

Is that a blush on him? His cheeks seem to redden, but not long enough for me to be certain. Maybe I imagined it.

"No, you didn't." I stroke my cool glass pendant.

He shrugs and offers nothing more.

Something has to be said. We can't keep staring at each other like this, nothing moving but the breeze.

_I ask to borrow a pencil, request a 6B even though mine is nestled in my pencil case. _

"Do you want—you want something to drink? Wine or something?"

He looks toward the sun, squints. "Yeah," he says. "Why not?"

_He offers me the 6B and our fingers touch when I take it._ _Our eyes meet and he smiles. Did his heart jump at the touch, too?_

I turn away and lead him inside. The scratch of ripping velcro catches my attention. He's pulling off the pieces of fabric he had wrapped around his ankles.

"What are those?"

He looks at his socked feet then back at me.

"The things… those." I point.

"Oh." He tries not to laugh, and the sound brings forward more whispered conversations at an art room table. "Gaiters. They stop dirt and rocks and crap from getting in my boots."

_He shows me shading, how to hold my pencil lightly and slant it over the paper, rub at a diagonal, then another diagonal._

_Can one request to be tutored in drawing?_

He drops his boots and "gaiters" by the slider.

"Nice," I say.

He shrugs. "Just part of the uniform. Makes me look like I know what I'm doing."

I smile at that—at least, I think I do. I saw the way he studied the soil, the sun, the slopes and angles of my yard. He knows what he's doing.

I take a bottle of Moscato from the fridge and pour two glasses.

"It's sweet," I say, feeling like I should apologize for my taste in wine. According to Maggie, Moscato is "_so_ two years ago."

Edward must not know this, or he doesn't care, because he says, "Cool," and swallows half of it in one mouthful.

We sit on stools at my kitchen counter, side by side. He's on my left, just like in Mrs. Molina's class.

_The nudge of a sharp elbow after a cracked joke. _

"Stanley's Landscape Design?"

He nods. "The name was, you know, established. People recommending us to their friends, word of mouth, we rely on that. Figured I should keep it when I took over."

"Makes sense." I twist a strand of hair around my finger. "Have you been doing this for long?"

"Worried I'll make a mess of your yard?" He snickers but doesn't wait for an answer. "Nah, just kidding. I worked for the previous owner. While I was at art school. Just hauling trash and mowing grass, carrying bags of concrete mix at first. Then I started designing with him, and I don't know, I just felt... that was me, you know? And about three years ago when he wanted to retire, the opportunity came up to buy the business. I had to act. Quit school." His eyes fall distant and his eyebrows pull together. In this moment he looks like a different Edward, like an older brother to the lighthearted Edward from high school.

I wonder if girls still swarm around him like they did back then.

His mouth opens over the lip of the glass and he swallows the last of his wine. I lift the bottle and he nods. With his fingers at the foot, he slides the glass toward me, his arm nearing mine.

He watches the tide rise in his glass. "That's enough. Thanks. So I emptied my savings, borrowed some, and bought him out."

I want to know more about his art school, about what he was studying and if it was a hard decision to quit, but even as the tightness in his expression disappears, as his shoulders relax, I can't bring myself to ask.

"What about you?" He nudges me, his elbow not as sharp as I remember it. He lets his arm rest there next to mine, warm, almost hot, like his skin has retained the sunshine that's tanned it so deeply. "You still friends with Angela?"

Of course he remembers Angela.

I refill my glass as well. "We're not _not _friends, but I haven't seen her in forever."

"You guys were together everywhere."

I stare at him, almost convinced that he's remembering this because of me and not because of Angela.

"She lives in Virginia. Her husband's in the navy and he's stationed there." I start to take a sip of my wine but pause before it reaches my lips. "They have three kids already."

"Oh... shit." He lifts his glass and sets it down again fast, a little hop. It lands on the tile with a clink. The wine swishes up the sides.

"I can't believe we're old enough to have three kids," I say. "I mean, that it's even possible without having triplets or something."

"No shit, man." He shakes his head. "That's insane."

.

At my front door, the screen open, ready to beckon him through, Edward faces me, clipboard under his arm and a business card stretched out between two fingers. He smiles. With a return smile, easier now, I take the card, careful not to touch his fingers. "Cell number's on the back," he says. "I'll get some ideas started. Sketch up a few for you to check out. Can you come by the office next week?"

I nod.

"Soon as the sketches are ready I'll have Gi call and set up an appointment."

I watch him walk up the path toward the street, the edges of the sky behind him stained with streaks of gold.

After I close the door I can't settle.

I've wondered about Edward from time to time, mused over what he was doing with himself, how he'd look, if he kept the same friends. But having seen him, standing here in my kitchen, drinking my wine, smiling at me... it's disconcerting. I find myself dwelling on the image of him leaning against my kitchen counter, the conversation that flowed between us. I'm already looking forward to seeing him again.

I top off my wine and, from the linen closet, I grab an old beach towel and head out back. I spread the towel over the grass beneath the maple and lean back against the trunk, ignoring the maple's shallow roots as they poke into me. To my right are the invasive poppies, long and lean-stemmed, reaching the height of my chest as I sit here sipping wine. The sunset enhances their orange color and they look rather beautiful. I wonder if I'll miss them, if I'll ever think of them when everything is done. I almost feel bad for them.

"You'll be gone soon," I say and look away, turning my face upward. Evening turns to night. The moon pulls itself free of the branches overhead, bleaching the grass silver. I watch the shadows creep across the yard in its wake, thinking of a younger version of myself, smitten with the younger version of the beautiful man who landed back in my life this evening.

My mind flips through more high school memories like the pages of a yearbook.

Edward: surrounded by a group of laughing girls.

Edward: leaning against his beat-up Volvo, joking around with guys in letter jackets.

Edward: bent over his tablet, brows drawn together as caricatures of our classmates appeared from the tip of his pencil. His brief smile when I had to stifle a giggle. He drew himself, all goofy looking. I didn't ask him why he didn't include me.

Edward: light from the bonfire on Ocean Beach flickers across his face, mystifying his features. James and Emmett on either side of him, beers in hand, hidden, not a bit inconspicuously, in paper bags. I pause here, lost in the smell of smoke and salty air, the bite of the onshore wind.

Senior year. He'd waved as I walked past, my arm linked with Angela's. Earlier that evening we'd stolen a less-than-half-full bottle of Bacardi from her sister. My cheeks burned at Edward's attention, the warmth mixing with the effects of the rum despite the shivers that coursed through me.

"I'm going to talk to Edward," I told Angela, half an hour later, the liquid-bravery amassing inside of me. Her giggles followed as I headed across the sand toward the bonfire.

We'd talked for a while, our eyes half-closed against the wind and smoke, about what I can't recall. I made him laugh, though. And I remember reveling in his smile, knowing I was the one who plastered it there.

"It's so weird seeing you drunk," he'd said through a laugh, his squinting eyes aimed only at me.

_It's so weird seeing you now, _he'd said today_. You know, I used to like you?_

It's like… like a message in a bottle, washed up onto the shore seven years too late. And like salt and sand work over time to make the glass frosty and opaque and the message hard to read, I struggle to make sense of Edward's words. He liked me? As in, he _liked_ liked me? The same way I liked him?

"Then why didn't you ever tell me, Edward?" I say the words to the wind, trying to dispel the ghosts of what might have been. Still, they reach for me, the smoke from that bonfire with Edward and my ardent hope for something more.

I'd dated a few guys through college and after, nice guys who were there and interested and fun to be around, who it didn't work out with for one reason or another. And if I really think about it, I never second guessed ending any of those relationships, never wondered what might have been.

And yet, tonight, sitting in my long-neglected yard, a yard whose neglect brought Edward back into my life, "what might have been" seems to tail every thought I have.

What if he'd told me that night?

What if I'd told him?

And yet, I have a hard time believing he meant that kind of _like_. He'd obviously told other girls, dated lots of them—no steady girlfriends that I knew of because, I assumed, there were too many choices. So why settle? And why choose someone like me?

My mind is more of a mess than my hair—than my yard—when I walk back inside, my stomach complaining that I forgot to feed it dinner.

I heat the last of Maggie's risotto and tie my hair into a ponytail as the microwave whirs. _Just take it as it comes_, I tell myself. _You'll be seeing a lot more of Edward Cullen. _


	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you for reading, reviewing, and for the recs, friends!_

_Big thanks to Maple for the pre-reading-love, and to myimm0rtal for the beta-love._

* * *

**Chapter 3.**

* * *

Edward's name lights up on my phone, alerting me to a text: _It was good to see you again_.

My heart rate spikes. Here in my bedroom, it's as if I'd actually taken that spin class Maggie tried to talk me into.

_You too,_ I send back, and even in type my reply seems whispered, unsure.

This is the start of a back-and-forth that lasts throughout the weekend.

_What do you think about improving your patio?_ One text says._ I have a couple of ideas._

Another: _I might need to drop by and re-take a few measurements if I can't decipher my chicken scratch._

That one strikes me as odd. He had such beautiful handwriting in high school, deliberate, like its own form of art.

He also suggests I look through a few magazines to gather ideas. If I find anything I become really attached to, he says he can incorporate it into his designs.

_I know you said colorful_, says another text. _ I'm thinking fuchsias. And begonias, yellow and orange ones, further up the hill_.

_Sounds great_, I reply, a memory of Edward getting caught in my pulse—his hand closing around my wrist.

"Try using orange there instead of red."

I looked up from my feeble attempt at art—we were supposed to be experimenting with techniques, and I'd settled on cubism. My mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. I must have looked like a goldfish.

My palms began to sweat as I looked down at his hand on mine. His fingers, stained blue and black and purple from the oil pastels we were using, braceleted my wrist easily.

He hadn't let go.

And then he did, dropping my hand and clearing his throat. My eyes snapped back to his.

He smiled, kind of, and scratched his cheek. A blue-black smudge appeared on his face; it was adorable. I wanted to wipe it away, feel the skin there, and the stubble shading his jaw, touch his soft-looking lips… He cleared his throat again, drawing my gaze away from his mouth, and pointed at the laminated color wheel tacked to the far wall. A row over, I caught Lauren's smug smile. Perhaps she thought we were talking about her.

"See how orange is opposite blue? It'll make both colors look more, uh, vibrant." He said _vibrant_ slowly, like he was embarrassed to describe it that way.

I nodded, smiled, wished I could think of something clever to say. Or anything at all to say. I put the red oil pastel back in the box and accepted the one Edward offered me. Orange. The color of the goldfish I'd been impersonating.

Mrs. Molina praised my use of complementary colors and gave me an A minus on that assignment. It was the highest mark I'd ever managed in her class. My dad, with his mustache and his bucket hat, told me art class was a waste of time—he couldn't understand why I'd choose an elective I consistently made average grades in. My mom said, "She likes it, Charlie. Let her get some enjoyment out of school."

She was right. I did like it. And I wished I could believe that she spoke up for me with my interests alone at heart, but I knew that joining her intentions was the justification of her recent enrollment in doll-making, ceramics, and cake-decorating classes. The classes my dad complained about because they took her away from the house four evenings out of the week.

Too many at once, he complained. Had she forgotten she has a family?

Edward told me his mom had his artwork framed. "She hung it in the dining room." He kept his eyes on the sketch he was producing as he spoke, as if he didn't want to admit how proud she was, like her pride made him uncomfortable.

It was interesting to me that he could speak and sketch at the same time, that his pencil didn't pause for a second.

It was the perfect opportunity for me to thank him for helping me out, to strike up a conversation with him, compliment him on his talent. I rehearsed what I was going to say… until the bell rang and Edward disappeared, absorbed into the crowd streaming toward the cafeteria.

A week passed and I still couldn't form the right words. And it was too late, I realized. I'd look like a total weirdo if I brought it up again. He'd probably forgotten all about it.

.

I take a sip of my coffee, wince, and spit the now-cold brew back into the mug. How long have I been lost in this memory of my awkward teenaged-self? I roll my shoulders, stretch my neck from side to side. My butt's gone numb. How have I put up with these bench seats for so long?

_You know, I used to like you?_

Despite my resolve to take things with Edward as they come, I find myself re-examining that memory in the classroom from a different angle. I've been doing it all weekend: dredging up old memories and shining the light of this new knowledge on them.

Did he look for opportunities to speak to me, too? Was that one of them? He could've just spoken; he didn't have to grasp my wrist. Did his fingers itch to touch me the way mine did him?

"Get a grip, Bella."

I stand up and take my still-full coffee mug back into the kitchen. I watch the cold, black liquid disappear down the drain and am reminded of Edward and me washing the stains off our hands, sharing the same stream of water.

I need to do something, keep myself occupied. With a sigh, I walk into the living room and start rifling through my DVDs. Maybe one of those do-it-at-home Yoga classes Maggie keeps foisting on me will do the trick.

.

Emily is sitting on my doorstep when I get home from work on Monday.

"Jeez, you get home late," she says.

"Well, not all of us can work the hours teachers do."

She flips me off for that, but she's grinning, the setting sun shining gold in her eyes. We both know she works hard and that unlike me, she often doesn't get to leave her work at the office.

"Open the door," she says, bouncing a little. "I need to pee."

I make coffee while Emily uses the bathroom, and then, steam-topped mugs in hand, we curl up on the couch together. I tuck my nylon-covered feet under her thigh and throw a block of chocolate onto her lap.

"Ooh, yummy," she says.

For a while, we sit in easy silence, sipping our coffee and decimating the candy. The day fades away, cloaking the room in shadows. I remove my feet from Emily's warmth and stretch over the side of the couch to flick the lamp on.

"I'm not cooking," I announce.

Emily ignores me, licking the chocolate off her fingertips. With smudged fingers, she grabs the _Sunset_ magazine sitting on the coffee table. "This is new. You going Maggie on me?"

"I'm having the backyard landscaped." I resist the urge to snatch the magazine from her. "These are just for preliminary ideas."

"Preliminary," Emily mimics. "Sounds like serious grown-up stuff." She flips it open at random, examining the glossy photographs. "That's hideous. Is it a garden or a cemetery?"

I sit up straight and cross my legs as if I'm one of her students, paying no mind to the fact that my skirt has risen up to my thighs. I look on as she thumbs through a few more pages.

"Seriously, some people have the worst taste." She flips another page and screws up her face at a photograph of a garden dotted with gnomes. " It should be illegal to collect gnomes. They're terrifying. If anything comes alive when your back is turned, it's one of these assholes. "

"What about something like this?" I turn to a dog-eared page.

Emily holds it up and faces the glass doors. She closes one eye, examining it like the photograph could become the view of the yard we'd see from here. "So you're serious? You're going to drop all kinds of cash on your garden? Like, a ton of money on plants and grass and shit?"

I'm about to point out I won't actually be spending any money on "shit," but then I remember the fetid smell of manure that seeps through my kitchen windows on occasion. Mr. Crowley swears by it. "Wonderful stuff," he says. "Bermuda grass thrives on it."

"I think it'll be nice," I say, a prickle in my voice. "I've been meaning to make something of the yard since I bought the place. You know that."

"Yeah, but I figured you'd do it yourself. Rope us into helping you. Not pay some chump to dig holes and stick seeds in them." She tosses the magazine back onto the table.

That prickle is barbed wire now. "He's not a chump."

Emily's eyebrows lift. Her scar might be almost invisible, but with this expression I can see the lasting effects of her injury—her right eyebrow lags behind the left.

I don't let her speak. "And it will be way more complicated than just digging holes and planting seeds."

"Mm-hmm." Emily's no longer interested in the garden. "Tell me about the gardener."

"He's not a gardener. He's a landscaper. And he, um… well, I knew – know him."

"That so?" It's a clear order to explain myself.

"I don't know if I ever… maybe I've mentioned him. A long time ago, maybe. Edward Cullen? His name is. We went to school together." My hands find each other and interlock.

Emily shrugs, taps her finger against her chin. Her dark eyes brim with mischief. "You may have mentioned him. Let me think." She smirks. "Edward Cullen. Ah, yes. The boy you were in love with through, oh, _all_ of high school. That Edward Cullen?"

I roll my eyes at her theatrics. "I wasn't _in love_ with him. But yes. That Edward Cullen."

"Indeed. And is that Edward Cullen every bit as _gorgeous_ as he was in high school?"

I seek escape from this conversation. This giddy feeling at the simple mention of his name is only nostalgia. I've spent a mere two hours with the guy in however many years. I don't know him anymore.

If I ever did.

But some younger part of myself edges out my rationale and pushes me to gush over the way Edward's muscles had grown and how they flexed as he moved around my yard, to gossip about those green eyes and that smile.

"He's very good-looking." I work to keep my voice level. I'm only reporting what's self-evident after all. "Probably more so than he was in school."

I stand and take the pile of magazines with me to the kitchen counter.

"Here." I pass Emily a pile of creased and stained takeout menus. "What do you feel like? Mexican? Thai?"

"Nice try," she says. "But I'm hungry, so I'll let this slide. For now."

Between mouthfuls of noodles, I tell her about the client who's making my life hell at work, calling up to a dozen times a day to ask me, specifically, every question that comes into his mind. "I mean, I know buying a house and getting a mortgage is stressful, but really? Other people are just as qualified to answer these inane questions. People who actually, you know, work for the mortgage company."

"My first graders sound more rational than adults most of the time. What is it about experience that makes us regress? Anyway, who can blame him, Bella? You probably are the most capable person he's dealt with." She drags her chicken through sauce. "I saw Rachel after work."

I drop my fork to my plate. "What? Where?" And how can she say that as if she were saying she'd seen a crow in the sky? Or a shadow on the moon?

Emily and Rachel were really close until her brother attacked Emily. Unlike their parents, Rachel didn't try to lay the blame at Emily's feet, suggesting she must have provoked Sam—as if that would excuse him in some way. But Rachel… well, I don't think she could look at Emily without feeling some sense of misplaced guilt. She'd been the one to introduce Emily and Sam at a party.

"She didn't see me." Emily leans over to stab her fork into my plate. She twists up a hunk of noodles. "She was just walking down Johnston, and I was driving past."

She sighs and doesn't take my noodles. She lets them drop from her fork and looks up at me. "It's just the first time I've seen her since…" She waves her hand in front of her face. "Since all that."

This is why Emily was waiting on my doorstep. She could've called me. She could've gone home and come back later. But she waited for me. She must've headed here right after work. Had she been waiting on my stoop all afternoon?

I put my plate on the coffee table and pick up her hand. "You okay?"

"It might not have even been her." She pulls her hand from mine, takes my plate, and puts it back on my lap. "Did you know this Edward guy was a landscaper? Is that why you're suddenly interested in fixing up your yard?"

I'm thrown by the change in subject. I want to insist we back up, but there's a warning in Emily's eyes. She wants me to forget she mentioned it. I can pretend to forget, like she does.

As I tug on my lips, trying to focus, I say, "No. I had no idea. The company's still named after the previous owner." I babble about how it was a shock to find him standing on my doorstep, but I'm thinking: Had she kept this thing with Rachel sealed in her mind all these hours only to let it breathe for twenty seconds before latching it back up?

Pretending is what she wants me to do, but is it right?

I think she pretends a lot. I think she pretended the whole thing wasn't Sam's fault.

She didn't blame herself, either. That was made obvious by her reaction to Sam's parents when they tried to shift the blame on her.

Emily blamed the booze.

"He was never angry like that," she said shortly after the incident. "He contained it well." She paused and then, as if anticipating my argument, "He was an angry drunk, though."

Doesn't the truth come out when you're drunk? Maybe that isn't the case for everyone, but if it were true in Sam's case, he must have been angry on the inside. Like Emily said, he contained it.

Contained it like one of those trick peanut cans contains the crammed-in snake that springs out of it when it's opened. When he drank, he became the snake.

"You didn't get a second opinion?" Emily asks.

"A second opinion?" I let myself join her game of pretend. For now. I force a smile and a teasing tone. "Girl, he's a landscaper, not a doctor."

"He could still try to rip you off."

"He hasn't even given me a quote yet," I say. "I'll see about getting a _second opinion_ once I find out how much he's actually going to charge me." It's a reasonable idea, but I know I probably won't do it. Edward won't cheat me.

.

Edward calls sooner than I expect and asks me if I can come by his office on Wednesday morning. I don't think twice before I agree, saying, "I have more vacation time than I know what to do with."

I'm up early, and without the need to follow my morning routine, I'm free to savor my coffee in the sunshine. It's funny, the yard doesn't seem quite as unruly today. Or at least, when I wander across a lawn that's now more weeds than grass, I don't feel as overwhelmed as I used to. The place seems alive with possibility. My garden, my sanctuary, the _extension of myself_, already taking shape in my imagination.

Later, as I'm dribbling water over the pot sitting in the center of my table, still seemingly empty, I tell the damp soil, "No nylons today. Maybe I'll wear a dress." As I walk back into my bedroom, unbuttoning my pajama top, I imagine the swish of floaty fabric above my knees and smile.

The hangers screech as I search through the rack of pencil skirts and tailored pants in my closet. Navy, tan, beige, charcoal gray, black, taupe. Beside them, my shirts. There's even less variation there—the occasional splash of cream or ivory the only breaks in the line of crisp white cotton.

When did this happen? Where are all the colorful dresses I bought in college? My mom told me they were a waste of money because they weren't "suitable attire for a place of business." She told me I should get a head start on building my professional wardrobe. I told her I didn't plan on spending my entire life in a _place of business_, and filled my wardrobe with pretty, fun, flirty dresses.

Where are all the graphic T-shirts I'd collected? The ones with witty statements that I wore with a smug smile, as though I were responsible for the slogans. The ones with vivid art graphics and literature references that I'd sought and purchased back when I was still conscious of my love for art and literature. Before I forgot or ignored that part of me. Before it went dormant.

At one time I had enough of those shirts to fill several drawers.

I start opening drawers at random. Underwear. More underwear. Socks. A whole drawer full of black and nude pantyhose, some still in their cardboard packages. The next one is filled with pastel pinks and blues and yellows—at least there's some color there, among the yearly Christmas gifts from my mom. The knitted scarves and hats, and the flannel pajama sets she hand-created for me.

The bottom drawer explodes in a riot of color. Dresses, skirts, T-shirts—all crammed down there, I now remember, to make room for my work attire. How they all fit, I don't know, but there's no way I'm going to be able to shove them all back in.

I let them tumble in a rainbow at my feet as I dig for the right thing to wear.

How had I forgotten about this shirt? I unwad it and hold it up. Emerald green with creamy-gold lettering. I pull it over my head, lift my hair from where it's trapped in the neckline of the tee. "I believe in the green light," it reads. Only those who'd read the book would appreciate this. It was easy to tell the difference between those who understood and those who didn't. A quick smirk or grin, eye contact—they got it. Or a longish look paired with a furrow in the brow and/or no eye contact—they didn't get it. Then there were those who barely gave it a glance, didn't even try.

I smile at the memory and catch my reflection in the mirror above my dresser.

It's a teeth-flashing, ecstatic sort of smile. It brightens my face in a way I'm not used to and it doesn't start to fade until I realize how long it's been since I've looked at my reflection this way—grinning at myself. I was in college, maybe graduation day. Beaming. And college was probably around the last time I'd worn this shirt. I pull at the hem trying to make the wrinkles disappear.

I dig through the drawer some more, but it's one I pull from the puddle on my floor that I decide on, a crumpled lilac sundress.

"Maybe I can escape nylons," I tell the dress. "But I can't escape the iron."

.

His office is located off a quiet, overlooked arm of downtown. More residential than business-oriented. It's a little cottage in the shadow of an old Victorian that was transformed from a home to a Tea Shoppe—with the extra P and E. I'd never noticed there was a cottage back here despite the A-frame sign standing on the sidewalk, announcing _Stanley's Landscape Design_ in large block letters, a bold arrow pointing the way.

Even though the floors, walls, and ceiling are all ebony-stained wood, the office is bright. A line of five high and wide windows overlook a tranquil garden with stone pathways, lush shrubbery, bluejays waddling around as though they own the place. They're comfortable. Perhaps they're home. There's a working fountain—I can almost hear the trickling water even with the windows closed—and next to it, a bird bath. I imagine the cheerful song of the birds. Their twitters and whistles as they splash water on themselves. The clapping of their wings as they let themselves go from the top of the bath back to the lawn.

Among all of this, I can _feel_ Edward behind me. He's silent though. Just waiting.

With their tweets in my ears, I pull myself from the window, avoid Edward's eyes, and move to the stack of large papers laid out on the table in the center of the room, all sketches.

I look them over. I can barely see how these designs could reside where I do, be my extension, but I'd take any of them. A vine-dripping trellis, just like Mr. Crowley's, only instead of a bench beneath it there's a stone path leading to an aligned vegetable garden. The plans seem the extension of greatness. But still, I'm drawn back to the window. "I–I like what you have out there." I point, my voice a little raw from prolonged silence. A silence shared with Edward while he waited. Patient. "Back there, in the corner."

"The sage?"

"I guess so."

"The taller one, behind the lavender?" He's right behind me. He could put his hand on me, his big palm curving over my shoulder, covering it. I can almost feel the weight of his touch.

"Yeah." I swallow. "And I like the lavender, too."

"We can do both. Inexpensive. Easy to manage. Wet or dry, they aren't too picky."

I turn to face him. Our eyes meet. He adjusts the cap on his head. Lifts it, replaces it. His lips turn up.

This feeling in my stomach, this fluttering, like the leaves on a shaken branch… Is this how the tree outside feels? Is it conscious of those little birds singing, playing, darting from branch to branch? Does it feel them swooping around, stirring its leaves?

I bring my fingertips to my throat.

"The sage," Edward says. "If you cut the flowers off when they bloom in the summer, you can continue to harvest the leaves for cooking."

I raise my eyebrows.

"Do you cook?" he asks.

"Don't have anyone else to cook for me."

The door behind us opens. A woman seems to float in, brown hair falling to the small of her back. Honey highlights, barely lighter than her skin, frame her face and curl loosely over her shoulders.

I can't tell if it's her make-up or if her face really glows like that, from the inside, like bronze. Exotic.

I smooth my dress down, the poise I thought I saw reflected in my mirror this morning deserting me. Her skirt, belted at her narrow waist, snug over her rounded hips, moves with her, like a second skin. I would swim in that skirt.

She hands Edward a small piece of paper, perhaps a message. In her strappy heels, the woman almost matches him in height.

"Hi," she says to me—full lips smiling—and reaches her hand out. Her fingers, tipped with a french manicure, are long and slender—piano playing fingers. "I'm Gianna. We spoke on the phone."

I tell her I recall and put my plain-nailed fingers in hers. She has a firm shake. Her eyes, soft and light, are off center. I only notice because her smile emphasizes this. With her smile the slightly lower eye squints a bit more and curves somewhat downward the way a doll's eyes might be painted on. It isn't off-putting. It's actually endearing.

When she shifts her attention to Edward, her eyes harden. "We need to talk."

"Keep checking out the sketches," he says to me before he follows her out of the office and closes the door behind them.

"What's going on?" I hear Gianna's muffled voice, which makes me move closer to the wall. "Don't tell me you're working for free again." I put my hand against the wall, cool and smooth, woodgrain against the lines of my palm.

"I'm not."

"She looks nineteen. Are you sure she can afford this? Don't cut her any deals, Edward. We need this job. The whole thing."

_Nineteen?_ I move my hand from the wall and touch my cheek. Was that what Edward meant when he said I looked the same?

His reply is a whisper that doesn't reach my greedy ears.

"Put value on your work. And remember, fifty percent down."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He's halfway through the office door by the time he's on his third "yeah."

"Maybe we should go over budget." He pulls a binder from a desk drawer.

"I can pay. I don't need any favors."

"I know. That's not why I... This is normal procedure. Bella..." He sets the binder down. "Did you hear us?" Under his breath he adds, "Fucking unprofessional." He inches toward me, stopping short. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about that."

"You should let her know these walls are thin if she's going to be talking about clients like that," I say. "Why does she care anyway? Why's it any of her business what you do?"

"She makes everything her business."

"I thought this was your company."

"It is. But she wants to get paid, too. Collin and Raoul have to come first. If I can't afford to pay someone, it's gotta be her."

I frown, lifting my hand to my forehead. "What? Why? Because she's a woman?"

"Not at all. No_.._. _Oh_... No, she's my wife."

His _wife?_

My breath gets trapped. My throat goes dry, like I've just swallowed a mouthful of saltwater. He's _married._

He's not single.

_Not again. Not again. _

The right and left sides of my brain collide and everything comes to a halt. I can no longer grasp a solid thought. My eyes dart around the office but I don't register anything.

"So, these mock ups. They range from about ten to eighteen thousand. I need to know if you want me to scale it back." He says this as if I'm still in the room with him.

"We can't do everything you want under ten."

Somehow I'm seated in a hard chair, my insides hollow. The saliva I swallow has nowhere to go. I'm an outline. The flutters I felt just minutes ago have died. I don't have to look out the window to know the birds have flown away, leaving behind nothing but a pile of bent and broken feathers.

"I thought we could arrange a date for me to take you over to this wholesale nursery. About fifty miles away. Best around."

"That's _your_ job, isn't it? I don't have time for this. I took time off work to come here today. Now I'm supposed to take more time off? What am I paying you for?"

"I thought—you said you had vacation time."

"And _this_ is how I'm supposed to spend my vacation?"

He takes a step back. "We can make it a Saturday."

"You do it."

"You should be the one making the decisions. I'm just the guy that makes it happen." He gestures to his designs. "You'll get to see some of these plants in person, narrow down a look." He points out the window, his forearm flexing. "Who picked out the sage? It hadn't even crossed my mind, but yeah, you need sage."

"I don't want it."

"The sage or the..." He glances down at his drawings, drifting his fingers toward the edge of the paper. "I'm sorry about Gianna. That wasn't about you at all. It's about me. I have worked for free. Once because I thought it would drive future business. But I get to feeling sorry for people who can't afford... Sometimes I throw something in here and there. It's... you know, it's bad for business. And the last big job–" he pulls off his cap and tosses it onto the table "–I underquoted. Had to eat a few grand."

He pulls out a chair, sits, leans on his elbows, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyebrows. "She's right, though. If something doesn't change, I'll go under. Take her with me. That can't happen." He lifts his gaze to mine across the table, across the sketches. "That was really nothing to do with you. She's stressed. And pissed at me."

The resentment I was feeling before starts to lift. I try to reach for it, grab a tight hold, but it's like grabbing on to sand. I see the lines around his mouth, the creases by his eyes and I can't help but feel sorry for him. The sand sifts through my fingers the way my soil had sifted through Edward's.

Those feelings that were souring my mind, I'm not entitled to them. He didn't mention he was married, but I didn't ask. I got caught up in the thrill of a crush that faded long ago.

"You don't wear a ring."

Edward looks at his left hand, curls it into a fist. "I trashed it," he says. "The first one, anyway. Gold's too soft for the kind of work I do and it got all banged up and split apart."

His voice goes weak. "She got me a titanium one to replace it. I lost it. I think in someone's garden. Took me a week to realize it was missing." He shakes his head then, like he's not sure why he's telling me this.

"Bella, if Gi knew you heard her she'd–"

I cut him off, tell him I'll go with him to the nursery.

It takes around an hour for Edward to create a design we're both satisfied with, pulling together elements from his sketches and working in a few of my requests. The tension between us slackens, but just barely.

He looks over the final design, mostly drawn in black ballpoint, and nods. "I like it."

_Me, too_.

I follow Edward into the next room where Gianna's sitting at her desk. I sift through my purse for my checkbook.

"Bella and I went to school together, Gi." Edward leans against the wall to my left, his arms folded across his chest. "Had some classes together." He side-smiles. "Art."

His eyes are on me so I say, "Yeah." It was the only class we had together.

Gianna looks from me to her – her husband. She smiles. "That's nice."

I slap my checkbook on the desk and motion for her to pass me a pen.

"Oh, no. You don't have to pay now. Not until Edward's drawn up an itemized quote for you. He can have it ready by..." Gianna looks at Edward, a sculpted eyebrow lifted. "Edward?"

He shifts his weight, tips his head back. He addresses the ceiling. "It should be done by tomorrow. Now that I have a better idea of the design. I can have it done by lunch time."

"Could you come by tomorrow?" Gianna asks. "Around two?"

I hesitate, looking between Gianna and Edward. I _could_ take another day off.

"She has to work," Edward says, tapping the wall twice with his heel. "Come by after you're done for the day. You'll still be here, right, Gi?"

Gianna nods. The smile she aims at me seems genuine. "Yes, I can stay. It's no problem."

"Okay. Tomorrow then."


	4. Chapter 4

**Our hugest thanks to Maplestyle for pre-reading, and myimm0rtal for her beta-love.**

**Thank you, also, to all of you who are reading, rec'ing, and reviewing. We appreciate you heaps.**

**Shell and Believey. xo**

* * *

**Chapter 4. **

After the words are out, swan-diving through the speaker of my phone, splashing into my mother's ear, I feel the gravity of my mistake. It's like watching a victim in a horror film head straight toward her killer when she's really trying to run away. It's an obvious, stupid mistake, but there's nothing you can do about it.

Hindsight. Mistakes, big or small, too often recognized after the fact. Too late. What about foresight? Our protector. Why is she so elusive?

It had to have been Edward's voice on a loop in my mind. His casual "I used to like you," and the way it made me rethink old memories. How I'd sat under my tree and at my table and in traffic willingly remembering. The ensuing thoughts that flickered like filtered sunlight through a moving car: hope, future. Tingles, like fingers playing over skin, the skips of my insides, the dreaminess in my head—all the manifestations of promise. And his just as casual words—as if I must have known, as if he was sure he'd already mentioned it—that brought everything to a severe halt: _She's my wife._

It had to have been thoughts like these that resulted in my slip over the phone, the mention of my appointment, and now my mother knows I'm having my yard redone. Though I am surprised she listened, that it registered with her. But it did, and she presses me to let her come over and take "before photos" despite the fact that I told her Edward already took a dozen pictures.

"You need to be_ in_ the pictures," she says. "I'll make a collage of it. A progressive photo narrative."

Of course she'd turn this into a new project. It'll keep her busy and out of the house.

My mind circles for an excuse but isn't quick enough to land. Agreeing to let her come is the best thing, anyway. This could be so much worse. Could be that she wants me to visit their house, both my mother and father at the same time. My skin constricts against my bones. They would launch questions at me and interrupt my answers, her questions having nothing to do with his and his having nothing to do with hers. They use me to let the other have it, let one know the other's voice isn't heard. I've taken to not answering most of the time, but sometimes I lose it, let out an unrestrained yell that I've had enough of their childishness. This only exacerbates the situation. The accusations come out with knifeblade points.

I was able to avoid them at Easter, but I can't avoid them much longer and it's better this way, one at a time.

When it's just my mother, I've learned to smile and nod and say "oh," and "mmm," and "uh-huh," as she complains about my father. That's what she calls him. Never Charlie, always "_your_ father."

"_Your_ father bought himself one of those atrocious massage chairs. I would've liked to buy a new sofa, but no, he went and spent all that money on a chair only he can sit in."

"I'm fed up with _your_ father never helping me out around the house. All that man does is glue himself in front of the History Channel."

I don't know when I came to own my dad, but I sometimes wonder if my mom blames me, perhaps even subconsciously, for her unhappiness. As a teenager, I suspected they were staying together for my sake. That's what people do, right? They stay together "for the kids."

Because obviously, I would rather have lived in a house that rattled with constant bickering, snide remarks volleyed across the breakfast table, than have them split up and take a chance at finding someone who'd make them happy. Or hell, take a chance at making themselves happy.

I remember when I used to cover my eyes while they fought above me or through me, wishing I could vanish. Funny thing was, from their vantage point, I had vanished. They couldn't wade through their own problems far enough to see me.

I spent much of my teen years hiding out at friends' houses and sleeping over on weekends.

My friend Riley's bed was like a slice of cake, frosted with the satiny pink ruffles of her comforter. Reclined on her candy-colored scatter pillows, I groaned. my sugar high wearing off. The giggles deserted me and left me with only a churning stomach.

"We lost," Riley said.

I lifted my head. "What?"

"Vicky just texted me. The boys lost 3-0."

Friday nights in our junior year were usually spent in the stands watching the baseball or football games. That particular Friday, however, Riley's parents had insisted she stay home and babysit her brother and sister, and Angela and I had agreed to stay in with her. It had been a grudging agreement on my part, though I tried my best to hide it. Ball games were some of the only times I could watch Edward—really watch him, without betraying the extent of the crush I carried. Everyone else watched him, too. So I could soak in every detail—his grin when things went our team's way, the furrow that appeared on his brow as he listened to the coach, the easy grace of his swing, the power of his throwing arm, his butt in those pants.

But that night, I'd had to trade watching Edward for Simba, and sips of spiked hot chocolate for way too many Red Vines.

As soon as Lucy and Seth were asleep, we'd retreated to Riley's room, keeping our music low enough to hear any movement from the little kids.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, felt their weird furry coat and wished again that I'd grabbed my toothbrush that afternoon. I'd forgotten my pajama pants, too, in my hurry to escape my parents' bickers about who shouldered more of the household chores—_"When was the last time you took out the trash, Charlie?" "When was the last time you had a job, Renée?"_—and the sweatpants Riley had loaned me were too short and too tight.

I wriggled. My heels slipped against the shiny comforter. "That sucks."

I wondered how Edward felt. Did he drink away his disappointment? Or did he bail on the after-game party, prefer to be alone? I imagined him on the pitcher's mound in the darkened stadium, throwing ball after ball, disappointment turning to determination.

"Who cares? Baseball's boring." Angela was sitting on a beanbag she'd shoved against the closed door. "Hey, Bella?"

"Mmm."

"Somebody told me you had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfr–"

"Shut _up_." I sat forward. Elastic dug into my stomach as I threw a pillow at Angela. She'd played that song on repeat for about a month. I wished she'd never heard of The Killers.

She giggled when the pillow landed in front of her red-socked toes. She kicked it and it skittered across the floor and disappeared under Riley's bed, lost to the monsters that lived under there, hidden amongst the out-of-style clothes and old school books. "We need to go to Vegas."

I rolled my eyes and lay back as Angela told Riley what she'd been telling me for weeks, her plans to sneak backstage at a concert and seduce Brandon Flowers.

"And then," she said, and even without being able to see her, I knew she had her hands clasped by her cheek, a dreamy smile fixed in place. Hamming it up as usual. "He's going to marry me."

"He's not going to marry you," I told the ceiling. "You're seventeen, Genius." Riley's ceiling was pocked with the dirty residue of the sticky-tape she'd used in previous years to affix dozens of pictures of galloping horses above her bed.

"Ignore Bella." Riley threw a packet of chips at me. I opened them despite how full and uncomfortable I already was. "She's still bitter that Edward kissed Heidi at Mike's party."

_She _kissed_ him_.

I'd seen it. Last Saturday night. I'd been looking for him since we got there. My gaze stuck to him like velcro when he came in with a few other guys and slapped Mike on the back. Heidi approached, drunk, giggling and falling over her own feet. Edward gripped her upper arm. "You all right?"

I watched her twirl her hair around her finger, while I imagined bolts of lightning shooting from my eyes, propelling her through the window behind her in a shower of glass shards. With a step closer, she lifted her hand to his shoulder for balance. Then, as he looked down at her, she moved her fingers to his jaw and planted one on him.

I felt the lead lining my stomach. Saw him step away, shake his head. Saw the smile he flashed her, like an apology.

Details like that didn't matter in high school gossip, though, nor did they matter to Heidi Milton. By lunchtime on Monday, the whole school had heard that she'd hooked up with Edward Cullen.

And although I knew it wasn't exactly the truth, disappointment still ate away at me. I wanted to hear him deny it—in front of everyone.

I kept silent though, as Riley and Angela vomited up the same gossip that had traveled the school all week. I didn't want to hear Angela tell me that I had to talk to him, flirt with him if I wanted to be the one he kissed. Didn't want Riley to offer me one of her tops or see her smirk when I reminded her that her clothes were too tight for me: "That's kinda the point, Bella."

Instead, I shoved a couple of chips into my mouth. My crunches blocked out the discussion of the finer points of Edward and Heidi's supposed relationship. God, what if he'd found consolation tonight with–

_They're not dating_, I told myself. _I've never seen him sit with her at lunch. They can't be dating._

But he wasn't dating me either. Not even close.

On my way to Edward's office, I try not to torment myself with these memories. Like writing his name and mine combined.

_Bella Cullen. Bella Marie Cullen. Isabella Marie Cullen._

The things that went through my mind as I looped our names together with my pen. We may not have been anywhere near dating, yet I had this fantasy that it was possible.

He'd ask me to prom and we'd hit it off. Laughing. I saw lots of laughing. Because isn't that what people do together when they hit it off? We'd become inseparable; in fact, unable to separate from me he'd walk me to every class, linger at the door, reluctant to let go of my hand.

He'd drive me home after school or take me to his house. When he hit a double or struck out the opposing team—one, two, three—his eyes would find mine in the stands and he'd have some sign, some wave or something, just for me.

I'd know what his lips felt like on mine, what his hands felt like on my face, in my hair, on my body.

Someday we'd be married. He would ask me.

_Mrs. Edward Cullen. _

One boring day over Spring Break I drew a band around my marriage finger with my gold metallic pen.

_Isabella Marie Swan-Cullen_

When you're a teenager, fantasies seem possible, plausible—even likely.

It's only after you nosedive into reality time after time that you realize exactly what fantasies are, that even when you dream about real people you see daily, you may as well be dreaming about unicorns.

I ignore the parking spaces within view of the Tea Shoppe and coast by while I get ahold of my head.

_This is not a big deal, _I tell myself.

I pull my car into a spot around the corner. My palms are sweaty on the steering wheel and I keep them there, fingers clenched, letting the engine idle. Its rumble seems to travel into my fingers and buzz up my arms, into my chest. "Stop it," I say, as if my body is more likely to obey spoken words.

They're just ancient feelings enjoying their brief revival. As I get to know_ this_ Edward—grown-up Edward, Gianna's husband Edward—these feelings will likely leave as quickly as they reappeared.

With a deep inhale, I cut the engine and brush the specks of dust I can't see but just _know_ are there off my blazer.

I stretch in my seat until I can see my reflection in the rearview mirror. I turn my head from side to side. Of course tendrils have escaped my braid. They creep like vines down my throat and around my face. I try to poke a strand back into the middle of the plait but it's a lost cause. I reapply my lipstick and blot my lips with a clean napkin from the glove box.

_It's a simple business transaction. Just go in, look at some pictures, and write a check. Ten minutes tops._

I push open the heavy wooden door, greeted by Gianna's warm smile. How can she be more beautiful than she was yesterday?

I smooth my skirt, my hair, touch my necklace. There's no sign of Edward. Relief and disappointment play tug-o-war inside me as I recall Gianna saying she'd stay late for me.

"All right. Here are the final sketches." She unrolls a couple of large sheets of heavy paper. "Did he get it right?"

It takes me a while to answer. I meander through the designs, squinting as I try to imagine Edward's neatly drawn black lines and noted dimensions take life. What would a _Raised Bed (4 x 12)_ look like in my yard? _Varicolored Perennials_… But which colors? What does _Shade-tolerant Ground Cover_ even mean?

As we talked about it yesterday, I could see it. But now…?

Feeling a little foolish, I turn to the last sheet and pause.

I'm lost in the images that emerged from Edward's pencils. The splashes of purple and pink; the oranges, yellows, and reds that could line my back fence. The herb garden. I can almost smell the scents mingling: cilantro, basil, mint, thyme, sage... The neat rows of the vegetable patch. The paved area with a barbeque and an outdoor table, framed with strings of lights. My apricot tree.

"He got it right," I whisper. I clear my throat, tear my attention from the drawing to Gianna. "It's perfect."

She untangles her fingers from their knot and breathes out. "I'm thrilled you're happy with it."

"It's–" like he's read my mind. No. Like he's read some part of me I couldn't even decipher myself and translated it into two-dimensional space. The colors, the scale, the _feel_. It's _me_. "It's better than I wanted... or expected."

"Great." A deep voice and my heart speeds.

Edward _is_ here, occupying the same space he did yesterday—back against the wall, arms across his chest.

Still enchanted with his sketches, I smile at him before I catch myself. How much enthusiasm do I show? How much enthusiasm would I show a regular contractor? One who wasn't an old friend? Who didn't throw me off balance with one word, with his presence?

"It looks... very good." I trail my fingers over the apricot tree.

He gives me a tight smile from the corner of his mouth. "I'm glad."

"Here's the itemized quote." Gianna turns another piece of paper toward me so I can see the list of planned work and materials, and the figures that accompany them.

I scan the lines of black type for the total. Barely under eighteen thousand. I finger my necklace. It's within my budget, but it's high. At the top. It'll leave me with just a few thousand left in my savings. I want this, though. And I have to have it exactly as Edward's drawn it.

Gianna places the paper on the table and pats it. "So, fifty percent down is standard."

Pen poised over my checkbook, I say, "I can pay the full balance now." I swallow, experience a moment of panic. Perspiration arises at my pulse points. Why did I say that? Just to prove to her that I can pay? _Too much pride, Bella._

Gianna's eyes seem to plead with Edward to accept while my mind pleads for him not to.

She says, "That's–"

"Not necessary." Edward moves from the wall to Gianna's desk. He lays his hand over my checkbook like he knows I'm foolish enough to insist on writing the check for the full amount. And I am. I concentrate on not pushing his hand out of the way and ridding myself of ninety percent of my savings in one go.

"It might change, anyway." A muscle in his jaw flexes as he looks down at me. "In your favor. Depending on the species of plants we choose. And maybe I can sweet talk Jacko into giving you a better price on the mulch and topsoil."

Edward this close, eyes on mine as he speaks to me, our fingertips touching where we both hold a part of my checkbook, my chest expands. I have to look away from him.

_His wife is across the desk from us_.

I take a breath and center myself. "Fifty percent then." I wish it didn't come out quite so weak. I write out _nine thousand dollars_ and tear the check along its perforated edge. I hand it to Gianna with my chin high and my eyes on hers. "I rounded up."

"Thank you." She slides my check into a drawer.

"Okay. So, the nursery." Edward rubs his palms together. "Saturdays are best for you?"

I frown. "But I want this." I touch his drawing. "Exactly this. Is it still necessary to go?"

The smile Edward turns on me is patient. "Sure. But, here, say..." He leans in, reaches in front of me and brushes the vibrant colors that spring up along the back fence. "We could put roses, or begonias… or something else. Depending on what you like."

"Um–" I shift my weight to my other foot to gain some distance. _He's a contactor. You're his client._ "Okay."

"Edward's free next Saturday," Gianna says. "Does that work?" She opens the calendar on the desk, slips a pen from its holder, and waits.

I just nod.

"Ten o'clock?" she asks.

"No." Edward straightens up and aims a look at Gianna that I can't understand. A furrow in his brow. He's communicating something to her. All eyes. He turns to me. "I–I've got something going on. Is one okay?"

"Y–yes."

"They close at 4:30 on Saturdays," Gianna says.

Edward rubs his neck, kneads at a muscle there.

"I don't want to inconvenience you," I say. " If Saturday isn't the best."

"It's not a problem," Edward says. "I know that nursery like the back of my hand. A couple of hours is all we need. I just... one is cutting it close for me. Can you meet me at our place?"

Part of me wants to say no. One of the last things I want to do is go to their home, where they've built a life together.

As it is, it will be only Edward and me in the small cab of his truck for an hour. Both ways. How weird would it be to insist on taking my car? Client, contractor.

I'd ridden in a car with him once before. It was early in the semester. February. In art I'd said something about walking home in the rain.

"Want a ride?" he'd asked, throwing me off the face of the earth.

He told me to meet him in the parking lot after school.

I hadn't expected or hoped for an offer, but he gave me one. I realized how it might have looked. Like I was hinting. So then I couldn't speak to him the whole way home, other than forcing my voice to be loud enough when he asked me where to go and which house was mine.

I felt him turn his head toward me, and I gripped the edges of my seat.

I could smell him underneath his fading cologne. It was the same cologne so many of the boys were wearing at the time, but for some reason, mixed with his scent, in his car with the windows rolled up, it smelled like everything.

I found myself holding my breath.

It wasn't until I was out of the car, just before I closed the door that I gave him four words he didn't have to pluck from me. "Thanks for the ride."

I slide my pendant along its chain. "That works," I say, and I force it to be loud enough.

"All right," says Gianna, gathering the sketches of my dream yard and rolling them up.

"Bella?" Edward reaches the door before I do and pulls it open for me. "You're not an inconvenience."

I can't look at him, but I offer him a small smile because I think I should.

.

In bed, my back to the headboard, softened by the pillow, laptop on my lap, itemized quote in my hand, I look back and forth: final price to bank account balance, bank account balance to final price. Twenty-three thousand now, and when my check is cashed: fourteen thousand. And after I've paid the balance: five thousand. Twenty-three thousand to five thousand.

I feel inside a bit like I've just vomited. Except that when I vomit, while I'm left with a burning throat and feeble bones, I'm not also left with a brand new, beautiful yard.

"This isn't all I have," I say to my bank account, or to the quote. There's some money tied up in investments. But that money, I can't get to it so it usually doesn't factor in to my summations. Not until now, as justify spending almost all of my "front" money within a few weeks.

Front money and back money, my dad calls it. Front money is what you have for spending now and for emergencies; back money is for the future.

"Easy come, easy go," I say. Though it wasn't easy come at all. I've been saving for as long as I've been working.

I close up my laptop, push it aside, fold up the paper, and scoot down to my back.

_You'll be okay,_ I tell myself, my eyes on the ceiling. Some people take out loans to have work like this done. My savings will be eaten up, but I won't be in debt. _You'll save more. You'll build it up again._

I can't sleep.

For three nights I toss and turn.

On the fourth night, when I decide the patio can wait until the end of summer, while I build up more savings in the meantime, I'm finally able to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

_Thank you, as ever, to Maplestyle and myimm0rtal. We're so grateful for your help._

_And thank you, friends, for reading, reviewing, and recommending _Heart's Desire_._

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**Chapter 5.**

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I don't think the maxi dress works on anyone quite like it does Gianna, like they were made for each other. It drapes her breasts, drops to an almost cinch at her waist, and fans out over her hips. It's a waterfall following the curves of rocks into a stream. And from where I stand on her porch, she's almost as high as a waterfall. I'm grateful when she invites me in so that I can step up into their house where she'll still tower me, but not by quite as much.

Inside I no longer feel like a hobbit.

The house is boxy but bright and open. The short entryway leafs out into a living room with a formal, curvy-backed sofa that looks prettier than it does comfortable, and on my right a tight dining room embraces an old fashioned dining set that reminds me of my grandmother's. It's probably antique. The cherry surface of the table gleams. Sparkles from the crystal chandelier above reflect off of it.

In fact, from where I stand, the whole place is pristine, near spotless aside from a skateboard on the floor at my feet, next to it knee pads, a helmet, a basketball, and some handheld video game thing, like a DS or Gameboy or something. The complete image seems to chase after my thoughts until, finally, it catches me. "Kids?" The sound of my disbelief carries it and I'm disappointed in myself.

"Yeah," a laugh, "one kid." Gianna closes the door behind me. "Edward."

"Ohh..." I say, and it's long and drawn out, swathed in relief that shouldn't belong to me.

"Or two if you count Garrett." She waves her hand and shakes her head, even rolls her eyes as if to dissuade me from asking who Garrett is. "I told you to put your toys in the garage, _Edward_." She aims her voice down the hall and only after she complains about his _toys _does she tell him I'm here. He jogs around the corner pulling a shirt over his head. For half a second I get a picture of his chest, his abs. I shouldn't have looked. I prolong my blink and try to ignore this vision of Edward, half shirtless, that's etched even behind my eyelids. His stomach, its smoothness, the flexing of his muscles as he moved, that path of darker hair leading below his pants.

"Hey, Bella," he says with an easy smile. He looks no more than seventeen in this moment. "Almost ready." He opens a closet door, takes out a pair of sneakers and pulls them on, using his thumb to help jam his feet inside, not bothering with the laces. He sidesteps Gianna and approaches his stuff, so near me I can smell his aftershave and see that his hair is still damp from a shower. "How ya doing?" he asks. He tosses the smaller things into his helmet then, basketball under his arm, he steps on the end of his board and flips it up into his other hand. He carries all of it through another door, which I assume is the garage, before he leads me out the front.

His touch to my elbow drives me to follow.

"It's a hot one for April, isn't it?"

I tell him that it is, trailing him to the driveway, past the big red truck, unevenly faded, like a peeling sunburn.

"We're taking Gi's car." Edward opens the passenger door of an SUV, polished to a mirror-like shine. The silver trim against the black looks platinum. "She says you'll be more comfortable." He gestures for me to enter as if he's my chauffeur.

I climb in and sink into smooth leather as he rounds to the other side. Edward slides into his seat, fires up the engine, and backs out of his driveway with an apology for making me wait. He says he had a game earlier and had to shower. "Couldn't meet up with you drenched in sweat."

"I'm not afraid of sweat," I say, and the way the words come out, they're flirty, bordering on suggestive. I hide my eyes and turn toward my window. Edward chuckles, uncomfortable but polite.

I'm quick to change the subject. "Game of what?"

"Basketball. It's the championships. And I had to give my buddy a ride. His car's in the shop."

"Garrett?"

He faces me with narrowed eyes as he pulls up to a red light.

"Gianna said—"

"No, Garrett's a kid." It's clipped, the sound of frustration.

"Yeah, that's what she said."

I can't make out what he says under his breath.

The light changes and he noses the car toward the freeway, another conversation crashing and burning. Why, though, I'm not quite sure.

I know I need to talk to Edward about my budget, about waiting on the patio, but despite that and despite my resolve to keep things purely contractor-client, I find myself approaching the very subject I should be avoiding. "How long have you and Gianna been married?" I keep my eyes forward as I await his answer, watching him only in my periphery.

"Uh." Edward drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "Almost five years."

I'm floored. They must've married at twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two. I can hear my mother: "Don't do it to yourself, Isabella. Don't rush into marriage." She didn't say _like I did_, but I heard it anyway, drifting on her sigh. "Wait until you've done everything else first," she said. "Finish school and focus on your career. Buy a house. See the world. Get married too young and you'll be kissing all your dreams goodbye." She never asked me what my dreams were.

Would I have been able to answer if she had?

I dreamed about the things an income could bring. How it would mean I could spend my weekends wandering through art galleries and boutiques or sitting under umbrellas in little café courtyards, laughing and discussing arthouse cinema with my girlfriends. Vacations on the beach, the sun-warmed sand beneath my feet; or backpacking my way across Europe, exploring rustic Tuscan villages and Parisian _arrondissements_. A new car, nothing fancy—a zippy little thing that I could squeeze into tiny parking spaces.

I dreamed about wearing smart-looking pantsuits and heels that would click-click as I walked into a meeting. An office with wide windows and a view I could look out over when I'd need inspiration. Inspiration for what? That was always vague.

But a career? Strange how it sounds so much like "careen." It's virtually the opposite.

But that's almost how it felt to me. My parents, teachers, the guidance counselor—"You have so much promise, Bella"—all forcing me to consider what I wanted to spend my working life doing. Like it was careening out of my control. Like I had to latch onto something quickly—something that paid well, allowed a good work-life balance, and had lots of opportunities for promotions but also was something that would be stimulating and creative—before I missed the career train, doomed to a life of bagging groceries in a supermarket somewhere.

I remember reading magazines in high school. I could write for them, I'd thought—or maybe work on their layout and design. I tried to picture myself at a computer, dragging an image over a quarter inch, adding a snappy caption beneath it. Was that really what someone somewhere spent their workday doing?

And somehow, no matter what I came up with, it always felt like they were tasks that belonged to other people, almost like they weren't real jobs.

Edward hangs a left onto the on-ramp. I'm pressed against the door, bracing myself on the handle. The car and I straighten up and we head east.

"That – that's brave."

"Not the usual response I get."

"It's not?"

He coughs out a hard laugh. "Some of Gi's friends called it romantic. I usually get the impression people think it's stupid. Not for marrying Gianna. Just for getting married. So young."

"But you were in love," I say, as if siding with Gianna's friends. I stare out the windshield, adjust in my seat. I'm a masochist. But I have some weird impulse to make him not feel stupid. "Angela did it, too. She said when you know, you know, so why waste your years?"

"Yeah." It's quiet.

He's staring now. Straight ahead.

After a minute he starts fiddling with the radio, eyes flicking from the console to the road and back. To stop myself from batting his hand away, I wedge my hands under my thighs, warm leather beneath my palms, sticky skin against the backs of my fingers. _Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road_: I try to push the thought at him but it doesn't reach. He jabs at the preset buttons. Pulsing dance music is replaced with something folksy and slow. I like it. Apparently Edward doesn't. He abandons the presets and turns the tuning knob. When he lands on rap, he pulls his hand away. Back on the wheel it goes.

Angry words supported by a heavy bass pound from the speakers. We join Interstate 680. Cars, pickups, semis swim around us. This area used to be near constant stop-and-go, back before they opened up the freeway, adding three more lanes. It would take twenty minutes just to exit the freeway.

When we pass our old town I watch it go by. I notice Edward does also, in glances.

"Ever go back?" he asks over the music.

"When I have to. My parents still live there. Same house."

"Mine, too."

It's the rap, the way the guy is telling the world loud and strong exactly what's on his mind, not prettying it up, actually keeping it downright ugly, that gives me the strength to spit out what's been in the back of my mind. I understand the power of rap, now. I understand the draw.

My words don't flow quite as smoothly as a rap. In fact, now that I know what I want to say, my vocabulary seems to have abandoned me.

"Edward?"

He turns the music down. "Yeah?"

"I..." Fingers at my chest, I fiddle with my necklace. I put it between my teeth for a second, bite down on the glass. "I have to postpone the patio work. Maybe to August?" Why do I pose it like a question?

He looks at me. "Okay."

I drop my chain. "I signed the quote."

"You'll sign a new one."

I search his expression for any shift. There's only a smile, probably meant to reassure. His hands on the steering wheel are relaxed, just like his voice.

"I will do it," I say. "Have you do it, I mean. I want it. It's just..."

"Not a problem. Whatever you decide."

"Will Gianna be upset?"

"Bella." He glances at me again. "If Gianna was in your position, heard what you heard, she would've walked out. Gi's grateful—_I'm_ grateful—you didn't walk out."

I nod. The clump in my throat dissolves.

"Thank you," he says. "For sticking with us."

I nod again. Apparently I can no longer speak.

He turns the music up only to lower it a second later.

"Were you there that day Lahote swallowed the lizard in Hansen's class?"

"N-No." It takes a moment for the change of subject to hit me and for his question to sink in. "I mean, I–I was at school that day, but I wasn't in that class. He didn't really do it, did he? That guy Angela dated for, like, half a minute told us about it. What was his name? He left later that year. Really tall, skinny guy? Always reminded me of a flamingo."

Edward's laugh starts small and builds. "Austin?" He's cracking up now, his face a deep red. "Played baseball?"'

"Yeah. He was in that class, but I never believed it was true. I thought it was like one of those urban legends."

"A flamingo." He looks at me, his smile so big it squinches up his eyes. It makes me laugh a little with him. Contagious. "I can see it."

After a minute his laughter dies down, his smile, too. The next time he glances at me, it's barely there, but his eyes are, right on mine.

We're quiet then. Even the music remains low, ignored. I'm too aware of the sound of my own swallowing, that it can be heard. It seems to make me swallow louder. Edward climbs the last hill and coasts into the parking lot.

I slip out of the car and pull the edges of my shorts away from my thighs, swollen and damp from my body heat against leather. Edward waits for me at the front of the car. I sling my bag over my shoulder and shut my door.

We walk side by side. Close. Our arms sway together. Without putting any distance between us, I'm careful to make sure our hands don't brush—keep mine snug against my body.

"We're not buying anything today," Edward says as we bypass the lines of heavy-duty carts at the entrance to the nursery. "I just… I just want to get an idea of what you like."

He runs his fingers through his hair then settles his cap over the mess he's stirred up. "All right. Go." He waves a hand, gesturing for me to go ahead of him.

The smell of sweet, damp soil mingles with the perfume of thousands of flowers and the chemical tang of fertilizers and insecticides. The sun beats on us. Already my armpits dampen.

I roam aimlessly over gravel, through the neat rows of flowering potted plants. Most of them come up to my neck in height. I shade my eyes with a hand and look around, unsure of what I'm supposed to be looking for. I move forward, turn around in a circle, move forward again. With a frown, I pause, trailing my fingers over a small shrub.

"You hate it all?"

"No." I laugh. "I don't hate any of it. But..." I turn to face Edward. "I can't do this."

He hesitates, adjusting his cap on his head. "Can't do what?"

I wave my arms at the sea of foliage surrounding me. "Walk around and look at plants with you watching me." I have to squint against the sunlight pouring down on me. "I feel like you – like you're judging my taste in plants."

Edward is silent for a moment, and then laughs. He pulls his cap off and plonks it on my head, chuckling.

Seventeen-year-old Bella swoons. Twenty-five-year-old Bella insists her pleasure comes only from the fact the sun is no longer forcing her eyes closed and burning her nose. She is, of course, completely unaware of the smells clinging to the hat, smells of sweat and shampoo and Edward, or the way the tips of his hair now glitter gold in the sunlight, the hair on his arms, too. Gold.

"Judging your taste in plants." Edward laughs again, quieter.

"Shut up."

"Sorry, sorry." He lifts his hands, palms out.

I fold my arms over my chest. Edward's gaze wanders over me before he looks me in the eye. "_Ceanothus foliosus_."

I blink. "If you say so."

"This way."

He leads me a few rows over to a group of shrubs. Vibrant purple-blue flowers burst against the plant's deep green, crinkly-looking leaves.

"It's so pretty," I say, fingering the rough edge of one of the leaves. "Lilac, right?"

He nods. "Wavy Leaf Mountain Lilac."

I bend to smell it. It's the kind of scent you find in soap or lotion, but here more vivid. It's the kind of smell that makes me close my eyes and just breathe it in.

"Note this," I say.

"Already noted." He taps his temple. "But there's more to choose from." He takes me over to another form of lilac. "This one's a ground cover."

I touch it and look at the small sign on a spike coming up from the ground: _Heart's Desire_.

"Under a tree would be great," he says. "It likes coastal regions and we're not far, but I think this one... it might like some shade. You get a lot of sun back there."

"And the bigger one? The mountain lilac. Where could I plant that?"

He shrugs. "Anywhere. It's tolerant."

I lead Edward back to it. "This one," I say. I can imagine bringing clippings of it into my house, filling vases, living every day in its scent. "I like the bush. It gets big, doesn't it?"

"Pretty big, yeah." He takes a small pair of clippers I didn't even know were there out of his back pocket and clips off a small branch of blooms. "About five feet." He hands the flowers to me and I take them, bring them to my nose.

"Yeah. I can live in this."

A wind picks up, lifts my hair, and I welcome the cool air, even if short-lived. I take the bill of Edward's cap between my fingers and lower it more firmly on my head.

The sway of a tapered plant as tall as a tree catches my attention. "What is that?"

I walk to it. I could sit on top of Edward's shoulders and it would have our combined height beat by a few inches. It's thin and mesmerizing and looks Seussian, like something that could be found in Whoville. It appears top heavy and is covered in tiny red blooms that make it look like it's on fire.

"Called Tower of Jewels. Do you like it?"

"It's like... otherworldly."

"It blooms every other year. Spends one year growing to its proper height and the next year blooming. Then it dies away and starts the process over again."

"I think it's better for a front yard than back."

He laughs and I tear my eyes away from the _Tower of Jewels. _"Why are you laughing?"

"Just judging your taste in plants." He pulls his grin into his mouth and dodges my smack. I get him only with the tips of my nails on his shoulder.

"Front yard, backyard," he says. "Whatever you want. It comes in purple flowers, too."

Like the lilac. But I love this red—fiery. It's striking in its weirdness. "I guess I can see it in the back corner on the hill where it can do its thing."

We meander in and out and up and down the nursery. It's bigger than I imagined. My legs actually ache after our climb over the hills, my breathing shallow. Edward points out the weirdest looking plants, naming them. One's like a wandering tree, hunched over, limbs draped to the ground as if it has heavy knuckles.

I've stopped asking him to jot down what I like. He points to his head every time. On our way out to the parking lot I ask him how he'll remember it all.

"I see it," he says.

"In your head?"

"In your yard." He takes his cap off my head and puts it back on his own. I wonder if part of my smell is mixed in with his now, the papaya of my conditioner. I start to slide fingers into my hair to unflatten it but reconsider. If it looks bad now, I'll only make it worse.

Our eyes are on each other again in that way where it would be both uncomfortable to look away or not look away. Something has to be said. "You're a Dodger's fan?" I point to his hat.

"Sometimes."

"I thought you were all about the Giants."

"Giants all the way."

I'm pretty sure the Dodgers are the Giants' biggest rivals.

I squint up at him. He chuckles.

We continue on toward the car.

"This must be pretty new," I say once we're inside. I noticed it earlier, but after spending the afternoon immersed in floral and earthy scents, that chemical "new car smell" inside the SUV is more pronounced. I can almost taste it.

"Few months old." Edward puts the car in reverse. He ignores the screen on the console that shows the feed from the reversing camera, braces his arm across the top of my seat, looks over his shoulder, and backs out of the parking space.

As Edward checks his blind spot and merges onto the frontage road, my window seems to disappear, along with Edward's, and the wind sweeps into the car, grabbing my hair and whipping it around like a jump rope.

"Oh, shit." He raises his voice over the wind. "Sorry." He closes the windows again and the car becomes still and silent. I wonder what it would be like to have a button like that in my brain, if I could just flip a switch and shut everything out. Like a shield or something. A cone of silence. I could use it when I visit my parents.

Edward's rueful tone reclaims my attention. "I always forget. Can't have your hair all messed up."

I gather my hair, twist it into a knot, and secure it with the elastic that lives on my wrist. "The wind can't do much that my hair doesn't do on its own anyway."

He smiles at that, shakes his head a little. He looks at me, and there it is, that weighty gaze. The one I can feel. It wanders up my neck, right up to the hair piled on my head, before flicking back down to my eyes.

The back of my neck pricks with chills despite how hot I am.

"What?"

"Nah. Nothing."

That response is as infuriating now as it was in high school.

I remember sitting in art class, smoothing my hair. I'd had it cut over the weekend and I was self-conscious about it, unsure if the bangs made me look sophisticated, like my mom promised, or like a twelve year old. And while Angela had declared me "_so _gorgeous," the confidence her compliments had built earlier in the day crumbled away as I waited for Edward to take his seat.

"Hey, Bella." He collapsed into the chair beside me, scraps of paper spilling from his sketch book. His fingers were smudged purplish with ballpoint ink.

He was looking at me. Staring almost. Thinking, definitely. And as much as I liked having his attention on me, it made me squirm.

"What?" I wished so hard that he would tell me my hair looked nice.

But he just smiled and opened up his sketch book, conjured a pencil from who knows where. "Nah. Nothing."

Just like back then, I want to insist he answer. _It's not nothing!_ Just like back then, I don't. Instead, I watch the hills roll by, my gaze tracing the line of them, up and down and up again, where earth meets sky. Their slopes are a fast-fading green—before summer, the sun will have bleached away the last splash of color.

We approach the bridge and traffic thickens. Edward overtakes an SUV crammed with teenagers and covered with dust and dirt. The trailer coupled to the vehicle makes me think of a baby elephant, trunk holding its momma's tail.

We cruise on toward home. Up ahead on the side of the road, an orange cat lies curled up. Not flat or bloody, but certainly lifeless. "Poor cat," I say, thinking of where he's come from, if he has a family, a child who will miss him, who's looking for him now. I hate seeing things like this.

Edward seems to search out and find the cat as we glide by. His gaze passes over mine and he nods, then gives a little laugh as he turns back to the road. It's the laugh I was familiar with years ago and am becoming reaquainted with now. It's a laugh I know. I study his profile, seeing so much of his younger self within this frame of older Edward. He glances at me and I dart my eyes back to the road ahead. He caught me staring though, and I feel the need to explain myself.

"Edward, every once in a while it's like you're the old you. From back then. And it's just weird. Knowing you but not knowing you."

"Yeah." He smiles as he says this, something he does too much.

Why does he have to smile like that when he talks?

"I see it, too. In you."

And why does he have to say stuff like that?

I close my eyes.

Gianna is lucky. Gianna is so lucky.

"Shit." Edward's glaring into his side mirror.

The SUV shakes like a leaf as the semi-trailer hurtles past, leaving us momentarily suspended in a thick cloud of bone-colored dust.

"Your tarp's loose, asshole." Edward switches on the windshield wipers, spraying fluid to clear as much dust off the glass as he can. It gets worse before it gets better. Arcing smears of grime is all I can see. I have to strain my eyes just to get an impression of the road.

"Can you see?"

"I can see. Don't worry."

The smears slowly turn into streaks thin enough to see between and I relax.

"Now I have to wash this thing again before Gianna drives it. I knew I should've taken my truck."

"A little dirt never hurt anyone."

He looks at me, too long and not long enough. "Yeah, well. You're lucky you don't have–" He shakes his head, lips pressed together.

"Lucky I don't have what?"

"Nothing. I just mean because you're not married. If something doesn't bug you it's not an issue but if... You don't have to... Nevermind."

He apologizes like he's annoyed with himself. Because of the bitter words he let loose, I think. I see no reason for him to apologize to me, though.

It's like that time he flirted with Mrs. Molina to get her to accept his drawing which didn't follow the assignment. "Come on." He looked directly into her eyes and grinned. "I needed a challenge." She brought a hand to her forehead and I could tell she was trying to suppress a smile. She averted her eyes from Edward, examining his drawing as she took it from him.

"From now on, follow the directions, Mr. Cullen."

He looked at me when he turned back to our table, smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes, not at the absurdity of the situation, but because all of it, his flirting, the way he made unrelenting and intense eye contact with her, the way his teeth flashed through his smile as he spoke, all of it affected me. _He _affected me.

He was trying to play her, and he played me at the same time.

At the roll of my eyes, his smirk fell and he apologized.

"Sorry," he said. _To me_.

"It's okay," I said, confused.

I didn't know how to respond to his unnecessary apology back then. This time I try to joke, try to lighten the situation. "Are you making assumptions about me?"

He glances at me, lips parted, his brow creased.

With a hand to my chest I feign offense. "How do you know I'm not married?"

Edward huffs a relieved-sounding laugh. "Call it an educated guess. In my experience, couples usually plan these things together." He strokes his chin. "Unless you were organizing a surprise, I guess."

"Well maybe I just forgot to mention that. That it's a surprise. Or maybe I, you know, take on projects like this on my own."

"Didn't see any guy stuff in your house."

"I didn't see you search my whole house."

"I'm fast."

"You saw my TV, didn't you? Anyway, maybe he's away… doing something husbandly."

"On business?"

"Yes. On business."

"And he took _all_ his things?"

With the back of my hand to my lips I hold in a laugh. "All of them. He has a very big suitcase. A trunk. Three trunks."

"Hmm. Possible. But you did pretty much tell me you were single."

"I did?"

"Yeah. Implied it, anyway. You said you didn't have anyone else to cook for you."

"Maybe," I say, "he's just a terrible cook."

"So," he says. "You're… taking advantage of your terrible cook of a husband being away—on business—to get your yard landscaped as a surprise."

"Yes."

"All right, then."

I direct my gaze out my window as I speak, quieter now. "No. Just kidding. I'm single."


End file.
